Charlotte Pike

Chorizo, Butterbean and Cabbage Soup

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This wasn’t ever going to be a post here, but last Sunday, I made this soup for a quick lunch on a bitterly cold day, and sent out a Tweet saying how underrated cabbage is. I had bought a lovely local Savoy cabbage for just pence that week. 

Many of you agreed and asked me for this recipe, and so here it is. I often make soups like this for a quick and nourishing lunch in the depths of winter. And when you’re out shopping next and see a lovely fresh cabbage, pick it up and give it a go.

Chorizo, Butterbean and Cabbage Soup

This is a truly delicious winter soup that really is quick and easy to make. It’d be excellent made with bacon, too.

The trick, I think, with the cabbage, is to put it in at the very last minute and stir so it just softens. I wouldn’t put the lid back on once it is in the pan. This means that it will just soften, but retain its bite and colour. 

Serves 4

Ingredients 

1 tbsp good olive oil

2 large brown onions, peeled and chopped

1 hoop of cured chorizo (around 200g), peeled and cut into 1cm cubes

Sea and black pepper, plus a pinch of sugar (optional)

1 x 400g tin butter beans, drained and rinsed

1 x 400g tin good chopped tomatoes

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

½ Savoy cabbage, thinly sliced and tough stalks removed

Fresh parsley, chopped, to serve (optional)

Method

Take a large, lidded saucepan, and add the oil and onions. Over a medium heat, gently cook the onions until they soften slightly. This should take 5-10 minutes, at least.

Add the chorizo and season, and continue to fry for another 5-10 minutes, until the fat starts to render from the chorizo.

Next, add the butter beans and tomatoes and stir well, followed by the stock. Simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the flavours have had the chance to come together. Taste and check the tomato tastes sweet and flavourful, and not too acidic and raw. It may need another 10 minutes if so. Now, add the sliced cabbage. Stir well and gently simmer for another three minutes or so, until it has just softened. Taste, check the cabbage is cooked to your liking and the soup is adequately seasoned. Serve immediately.

Beef and Red Wine Pie

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I made this delicious pie some time ago and promised you the recipe, and here it is. It works really nicely with venison, too. Some of you have been asking for a beef pie recipe for a while, and I think I’ve really cracked it with this one. You can use most cuts of beef if you don’t have chuck steak. Just make sure it’s nicely trimmed. I’ve also included enough pastry to make a bottom and a top. I know this is controversial, but I usually just add a top to my pies (I know, that means it’s technically a casserole with a pastry, not a pie), but that’s how I like it. So you can halve the quantity of the pastry recipe if you like. Any excess will freeze well though. I like to roll it and then freeze it in a sheet.

Beef and Red Wine Pie

Charlotte Pike

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil, for frying

700g diced chuck steak

20g plain flour, seasoned

200g smoked bacon, sliced thinly

25g butter

2 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced

3 small carrots, peeled and finely diced

250ml red wine

400ml beef stock

4 sprigs of thyme, leaves roughly chopped

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp muscovado sugar

1-2 tsp Aspall Red Wine Vinegar

 

For the pastry

500g plain flour

125g butter

125g lard

Pinch salt

Cold water

One large egg, beaten

 

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 150C/Gas Mark 3.  Place the beef in a bowl, add the flour and season well with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large frying pan or casserole dish and add the beef to the pan. Fry over a high heat until brown. Add the bacon and continue to cook.

Turn down the heat and add the butter, onions and carrots and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the wine, stock, thyme, bay, sugar and vinegar. Stir well, bring to the boil.

Tranfer the filling to an ovenproof casserole dish.  Cover and place in the oven for 1.5 to 2 hours. Remove and allow to cool.

Now, make the pastry. Rub the fats into the flour in a large bowl to make breadcrumbs. This can be done very quickly in a food processor. Blend with enough cold water (around 4-6 tablespoons) to make a firm dough. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. On a floured surface roll out half the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin. Spoon in the cold pie filling into a pie dish and cover with pastry. Trim the edges and decorate if you wish. Cut a hole in the centre, brush with beaten egg and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the pastry is a rich, golden brown.

Serve with wilted greens, and potatoes, if you like.

Where to shop? My top Irish Food & Drink Producers

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Those of you know me, know that I have a deep and longstanding affection for Ireland. So much so, that I’m often asked in Irish interviews if I have Irish family. It started when I went to Ballymaloe Cookery School in East Cork to undertake their very special 12-week Certificate Course, which I’d recommend highly. Since then, I’ve been welcomed back to Ireland with open arms at events, TV programmes and just on my holidays. It feels like coming home.

One of the things I love most about Ireland is the quality of the food. There is so much food, natural food available in Ireland, I always stock up when I’m visiting. And so I’m really keen to share 17 brilliant Irish food and drink producers who you should know about, and whom I hope some of you may be able to support by buying their excellent produce if at all possible. I’ve visited almost all of them personally and purchased and enjoyed their products many times. It’s a difficult time for us all, but I firmly believe that if we can spend our money with the small businesses we want to support right now, we will all end up in a better place when we are through this difficult period.

This beautiful hand rolled butter is simply some of the best farmhouse butter you’ll ever try. It’s made in Dromara, Co. Down by husband and wife team Allison and Will, who produce every roll by hand. They’ve won loads of awards and supply some of the best restaurants in the business. It’s available to buy online and in a number of retailers in Great Britain, too.

Ballymaloe Foods are hugely popular in Ireland, most famous for their absolutely delicious tomato relish, which is really worth trying if you haven’t already. Whilst tremendously successful, this is still a wonderful family business, based in East Cork, with all products made by hand in their unit at Little Island. They also produce a lovely range of dressings, vinaigrettes, meat glazes and pasta sauces, and sell through Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado in G.B.

One of the finest butchers in ROI, run by the brilliantly inspiring Pat Whelan. Operating a small chain of butchers and counters across the Republic, James Whelan Butchers sell some of the highest quality meat and animal fats you’ll find. Their beef dripping won the Supreme Champion Award at the Great Taste Awards in 2015. They offer a good online delivery service, but for GB, the minimum order is £200 and 10 EURO delivery. Worth it to stock up the freezer.

Gubbeen has been operating near Schull, Co. Cork for over 30 years and is still run by the Ferguson family. They make superb cheeses, sold widely across Ireland and GB (they are always stocked at Neal’s Yard Dairy) and charcuterie.

Brendan and Kerry Sloan brew some fantastic beers near the Mourne Mountains, and also have a fantastic visitor centre for tastings in Castlewellan. They produce a really lovely range of beers in a wide range of styles. Try their special award-winning stout, Kreme de la Kremlin. Look out for their beers in bars, restaurants and supermarkets.

Quite simply, the most delicious rapeseed oil I’ve ever tried. This is really special stuff, cold pressed in Limavady in Co. Londonderry. It’s so delicious, and comes in a range of flavours. It’s also the oil sold in Liberty, as part of their food range. Widely sold online and in supermarkets.

This apple-based syrup is an incredibly delicious organic Irish apple syrup. Made in Kilkenny, it’s a wonderful, rich syrup that has so many uses in sweet and savoury cooking. I use it with fruit and yoghurt, or pancakes, but the uses are endless. Its flavour is wonderfully balanced and incredibly moreish.

Arun Kapil is a fellow Ballymaloe graduate who produces a wide range of delicious top-quality spice blends and Indian sauces. Based in Midleton, Co. Cork, they sell widely in supermarkets in the UK and across Ireland as well as online sales on their website.

Bakers of delicious biscuits, this Waterford-based producer of biscuits and confectionery is worth keeping an eye out for. Their beautifully packaged products make attractive and delicious gifts, and they are sold widely in the UK and Ireland.

One of my very, very favourite cheeses. This washed rind soft cheese is made on the Beara peninsula in South West Ireland. I was lucky enough to visit this amazing spot a few years ago, and see the delicious cheese being made. It is the longest established Irish farmhouse cheese, and is widely available across Ireland and in great cheesemongers in the UK.

St Tola Irish goat’s cheese is just so good. They produce a range of cheeses, including a crottin and a variety of logs. My favourite is the ashed log.

Again, widely available in Ireland and further afield.

This traditional stone mill in Co. Cork. Produces the mose delicious oatmeal and course flour I’ve ever had. It’s quite hard to get hold of, but SUCH a treat. I cannot leave Ireland without a stash.

This dried seaweed is so brilliant, and fills me with happy memories of Ireland and my time at Ballymaloe. Carageen moss pudding is just so delicious and a completely essential feature on the legendary Ballymaloe sweet trolley. It’s widely sold in shops and online and is super light to bring back in a suitcase.

The Hannan family are legendary meat producers in Northern Ireland, and their Meat Merchant shop in Moira is a popular destination for visitors looking to stock up the freezer. They’re best known for their Glenarm beef, and also their pork and lamb products – many of which are aged in their amazing Himalayan salt chamber. You’ll find their meat on top restaurant menus across the UK and Ireland, and you can buy meat either direct or from Fortnum & Mason.

This family-run small-scale pig farm and charcuterie producer near Limavady produces some seriously sensational charcuterie, which is available to buy in NI and online with free delivery. I love the chorizo and the fennel salami. Alastair Crown is one of the nicest men you’ll meet and he offers a delicious-sounding hog roast service for parties in NI.

This multi-award winning butter made from the very special PGI Armagh bramley apples is absolutely delicious and a very useful ingredient with many sweet and savoury uses. It lasts well and is available in a number of stockists in the UK (mainly in northern England and Scotland), as well as widely across Ireland.

Made on the Clandeboye Estate in NI, this yoghurt is seriously delicious, so do look out for it. There are lots of great Irish yoghurt producers you should know about, too. Glenilen and Glenisk sell their yoghurt very widely. Killowen produce a lovely blackcurrant yoghurt I love, too.